In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Search: Affective Justice: Book Symposium: A Response

24 May

So, Alan Dershowitz has decided that international law needs to be “delegitimized,” because it is unfair to Israel. It is reasonable to consider, therefore, what Dershowitz believes a “fair” international law would allow Israel to do. Here is one of his suggestions, from a 2002 Jerusalem Post editorial entitled “New Response to Palestinian Terrorism” (emphasis mine): In light of the willingness of suicide bombers to die in the process of killing Israelis, the traditional methods of deterrence and retaliation seem insufficient. To succeed, Israel must turn the Palestinian leadership and...
24.05.10 | |

18 May

Presidency like George Gilder's Wealth and Poverty. Happy it sells books and does rub the Administration in the way it wants to be rubbed - but that does not deter from the fact that the book has the above fatal flaws. A more interesting book would be why this unrelenting attack on traditional international law that has alienated so many conservative as well as liberal scholars? Maybe it should be called "The limits of limiting international law." Best, Ben Davis Associate Professor of Law University of Toledo College of Law...
18.05.06 | |

08 Aug

...last fifty years show that American citizens overwhelmingly (between 80 and 90%) believe this false history which, of course, makes them feel better about killing hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians (mostly women and children) and saving American lives to accomplish the ending of the war. The best book, in my opinion, to explode this myth is The Decision to Use the Bomb by Gar Alperovitz, because it not only explains the real reasons the bombs were dropped, but also gives a detailed history of how and why the myth...
08.08.06 | |

24 Feb

...undeserving) influence on (at least the rhetoric of) the Republican Party Michael Darlington By the way, Patrick, I agree that Paul Kennedy's book "The Parliament of Man", which I have read, is very good. It does however have two major failings, I find. I don't know the O'Connell book but will now make a point of reading it. The two weaknesses I see in Paul Kennedy's book both arise, I think, mainly from its being too New York-centric (that's New York as in the UN headquarters in New York), but...
24.02.10 | |

09 Jan

...Morocco. This aspect has been confirmed by 1975’s International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) advisory opinion, which, beside upholding the right of the country’s inhabitants to self-determination, pointed out that there were “legal ties of allegiance between the Sultan of Morocco and some of the tribes living in the territory of Western Sahara”. Sahrawis have the full right to self-determinate their future and Morocco should be considered accountable for its violations of human rights. Nonetheless, it is still today a matter of harsh debates to which extent Polisario – the Sahrawi...
09.01.14 | |

14 Jul

...(Article 9 of the ILC Articles would not be sufficient - that is not the sort of situation contemplated by the commentaries, cf. the Yeager case before the Iran-US Claims Tribunal). However, I think Israel still has the right to initiate a proportionate response in self-defense, even if this response hurts not only Hezbollah but also Lebanon. This is I believe the classical case of self-defense in response to an armed attack by a non-state actor, as first contemplated in the famous Caroline incident. I discuss this conflation between primary...
14.07.06 | |

13 Jul

...emerge when the institution in question is widely used rather than marginal. Response: What a horrendous state of affairs it would be if these military commissions (even in their third generation) were widely used, let alone used at all. Some still work to stop these conviction machines. See Flawed Justice for Terror Suspects, Toledo Blade, June 17, 2012 (http://www.toledoblade.com/Op-Ed-Columns/2012/06/17/Flawed-justice-for-terror-suspects.html) (ii) Any given institution will have many consequences, some of them opposed in their tendency. It is imperative, therefore, to look at their net effect. [I would add that we should...
13.07.12 | |

16 Jun

JordanPaust Response... This argument seems a bit complex and legally ignorant in several respects. Of course, the better view is on JURIST. http://jurist.org/forum/2011/05/jordan-paust-libya-war-powers.php The magic word is "hostilities" -- and, of course we are directly involved in "hostilities" authorized by the UN SC and we are directly and unavoidably involved in an international armed conflict to which the laws of war apply. If the Obama Administration was not tunnel visioned re: the response to congressional critics it might have contemplated whether the pilots who were shot down and had "boots...
16.06.11 | |

30 Jul

...regulative goal is to spell out what it means to do justice to distinction and proportionality by protecting civilians as much as militarily possible. It does not spell out how the attacker’s obligations fall by the wayside if the presence of the civilian population interferes with a belligerent’s ability to conduct effective military operations. A second concern is not that warnings are used to weaken other legal obligations, but that the practice itself violates international law. In circumstances in which the civilian population has in fact no means to leave...
30.07.14 | |

18 Jan

Gabor Rona posted a response to Jens Ohlin yesterday. Jens responded at LieberCode — and now Gabor has responded to Jens’s response (and John Dehn’s comment on his OJ post). Here is what Jens wrote (reposted with permission): Many thanks to Gabor Rona for taking the time to continue this conversation. There’s a lot in Rona’s post, but I want to cut to the heart of the conceptual issue here regarding the inter-operation of these bodies of law. In terms of the relationship between IHL and IHRL, and the notion...
18.01.12 | |

22 Mar

is not and cannot be an Article II “natural born citizen.” Since he is neither “a natural born Citizen, [n]or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution,” he is not eligible to be President and Commander in Chief of the Military. For my response to Neal Katyal and Paul Clement article, see Mario Apuzzo, A Response to Neil Katyal and Paul Clement on the Meaning of a Natural Born Citizen , accessed at http://puzo1.blogspot.com/2015/03/a-response-to-neil-katyal-and-paul.html . Mario Apuzzo, Esq. Ray Peter Spiro at...
22.03.15 | |

31 Aug

that have to date blocked any meaningful response to the Syrian government’s actions.Response... Jordan Jennifer: footnote 44 of the 34 U. Pa. J. Int'l L. 431 (2013) article notes that Turkey, France, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, the U.K., and the U.S. had recognized the opposiiton as the legitimate leader of the Syrian people by the end of 2012. Kevin Jon Heller Jennifer, The only source you cite in defense of unilateral humanitarian intervention is the report issued by ICISS. But I fail to see...
31.08.13 | |